NBA legend teaches learning habits

File photo
New York Knicks forward Jerry Lucas (left) is shown in this undated photo against the Milwaukee Bucks Jon McGlocklin.

1970 NBAE

PORT ST. LUCIE — Jerry Lucas was voted one of the NBA’s top 50 players of all time in 1996, but these days he’s simply known as “Dr. Memory.”

One of only three players ever to win a championship in high school, college, the NBA and the Olympics (Magic Johnson and Quinn Buckner did, too), Lucas says he has used his memory the last 40 years to create systems dedicated to learning and education. That included writing a New York Times best-seller, “The Memory Book,” that sold more than 3.5 million copies.

Lucas currently is implementing his learning and memory system — Dr. M’s Universe, an interactive web-based digital platform used to help make learning easier and fun for kids and adults.

Lucas, 73, who retired from the NBA after the 1974 season along with fellow NBA Hall of Famers Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere, gave three free, open-to-the public seminars Sunday and will also give one at 6:30 p.m. Monday at All Villages Presbyterian Church and School, 550 S.W. Heatherwood Blvd., Port St. Lucie.

Q: What was it like playing at Ohio State with John Havlicek and Bobby Knight under coach Fred Taylor?

A: They were great people. All of us were from Ohio, most of us from small schools in Ohio, and all were really great students. I think our cumulative grade-point average was 3.6, which is unbelievable. I developed lifelong friendships ... To win the national championship you have to a good set of players. I went on an academic scholarship; I didn’t want an athletic scholarship. I was a student-athlete, not an athletic student.

Q: Did you have a business relationship with George Steinbrenner?

A: He signed me to my first professional basketball contract. He owned a team in what was then known as the American Basketball League, which preceded the ABA. Abe Saperstein, the originator of the Harlem Globetrotters, founded that league, and George owned a team in it called the Cleveland Pipers. The NBA offered me $30,000 a year and George offered me $40,000. The league folded before I ever got to play, so George never gave me a nickel. There were no bonuses in those days.

Q: What was it like playing for the Knicks in the early 1970s?

A: It’s the most fun I ever had professionally playing basketball because they were the ultimate team. It was an incredibly intellectual team, from an IQ standpoint and a basketball knowledge standpoint, which was fun. We weren’t the biggest, strongest or fastest, but we were the best because we embodied what a team should do. There were no egos or selfishness on the team. I loved playing with that team. We had Phi Beta Kappas, Rhodes scholars, people who went on to get PhDs. (My roommate) Phil Jackson went on to become one of the greatest coaches of all time.

Q: Do you feel you played a vital role with the Knicks?

A: I went to the Knicks in 1970 after they won the world championship because Willis was hurt a lot. They wanted me to be a backup at center. I started a lot in 1973, probably 75 percent, because Willis was hurt. The big guys hated to play me because they had to come out (to guard me). I shot the ball farther than anybody. I remember in ’72, we were diminished in manpower because of injuries, and the Lakers had won 33 in a row. In the first (Finals) game in Los Angeles, I’d never seen a team so dumbfounded. The Lakers knew they couldn’t beat us. We were up 40 in the third quarter. If Wilt didn’t come out, boom, I’d shoot over him. If he did, I’d go around him and pass it to DeBusschere or (Bill) Bradley. Unfortunately, DeBusschere got hurt, and they won four straight after that.

A: I started in grade school. Children learn automatically prior to going to school. Everything they learn has an identity. Parents point it out chair, cat, horse, cow, tree, monkey, whatever it is. You can’t forget it; it’s impossible. Every time you think of a tangible object, it appears in your mind. If I say to you, “Please do not see a zebra in your mind,” you have to see a zebra. We go to school and nothing has an identity ink on a page, intangible and abstract. I thought, “What if I can give an identity to all the abstract information that has to be learned?” And I have. That’s what the Lucas Learning System is all about. It’ll revolutionize the educational process totally, and that’s what I’ve been working on for 40 years.